Pineapple producers from the district of La Chorrera demand the Ministry of Agricultural Development complies with Law 25 of 2012, which provides a subsidy to export for small producers who have 3 to 5 hectares.
Evelio Sanchez Castro, a producer from the village of Iturralde, in La Chorrera, said Law 25 was created to help small producers, "that money would help us with the purchase of seed and some inputs to maintain the pineapples. We'll cover the rest. However, we had a meeting with the program director and he told us that the comptroller, Federico Humbert, did not want to pay," he said.
The producer said the inspectors of the Comptroller had inspected the farms after the harvest had finished, which wasn't the producers' fault as the supervisory institution did not coordinate them in time. "They're always delayed," said Sanchez Castro.
Meanwhile, Ramiro Caballero, another producer, said the situation was very unfortunate because some producers didn't even have the resources to produce one hectare of this precious commodity and their only hope was getting this support through the Mida. "We have land, but we can't produce because we don't have enough money and the banks are asking for many requirements to loan money nowadays," he said.
Armando Ruiz, director of the Mida's 5th Region in West Panama, said the Law 25 was being modified and that they expected it would be ready to be enforced by March or April.
More than twenty small pineapple producers in La Chorrera grow between 80 and 100 hectares of this product, some of them to export the product and others to supply the local market.
